Cultural origins Late 1990s, London, UK | ||
Stylistic origins 2-step
breakbeat
drum and bass Typical instruments Sequencer
turntables
samplers
drum machines
synthesizer
personal computer | ||
Breakstep, or breakbeat garage, is a genre of music that evolved from the UK garage scene and influenced the emergence of dubstep.
History
Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo drum and bass style basslines, trading the shuffle of 2-step for a more straightforward breakbeat drum pattern. The breakthrough for this style came in 1999 from DJ Dee Kline's "I Don't Smoke" selling 15,000 units on Rat Records, until eventually being licensed to EastWest in 2000 and climbing the Top 40 UK chart to number 11. Following this came DJ Zinc's "138 Trek", an experiment with drum & bass production at UK garage tempo (138 bpm). This instigated a dialog between breaks and garage producers, with Forward>> (a club night at Plastic People, London) playing host to Zed Bias and Oris Jay (aka Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers like DJ Distance.